Neural override verification and constraint architecture for sovereign AGI execution at driver, firmware, and hypervisor gateways

Abstract

NOVACOV enforces a fail-closed, permit-before-action control path for autonomous agents. At deployment, agent logic is sealed as an Immutable Constraint Chain (ICC) anchored in an append-only verifiable log that publishes signed heads. At runtime, a read-only Encrypted Logic Vault (ELV) performs verify-to-activation by validating inclusion and append-only-evolution (consistency) proofs under a freshness policy, constructing a behavioral profile for each request, and comparing the profile to the ICC. A Purpose Enforcement Kernel (PEK) checks alignment against a Mission Identity Template (MIT), and a licensing gate (GLG) verifies license tier and an m-of-n quorum. On PASS, the system mints a short-lived, audience-bound permit, records it in an Immutable Arbitration Ledger (IAL), and requires the permit identifier prior to device I/O or network egress; otherwise, the gate returns a structured disposition selected from HOLD, QUARANTINE, DENY, or ESCALATE and enforces anti-replay and Override Signature Denial Engine (OSDE)-based replay/mimicry denial.

The invention claimed is: 
     
         1 . A system comprising one or more processors and a non-transitory memory storing instructions that, when executed, cause the system to enforce a fail-closed verify-to-activation gate for an AI (artificial intelligence) agent by: (a) encoding deployment logic into an Immutable Constraint Chain (ICC) and anchoring a commitment in an append-only verifiable log that publishes signed heads; at runtime, within a read-only Encrypted Logic Vault (ELV), verifying inclusion relative to a current signed head under a freshness policy and, upon head advance, verifying append-only-evolution (consistency) from a previously observed head; (b) verifying license authority at a licensing gate (GLG) including a license-tier check and an m-of-n quorum; (c) responsive to (a)-(b) passing, minting a short-lived, audience-bound permit, recording a permit record in an Immutable Arbitration Ledger (IAL), and requiring a valid, unexpired, and unrevoked permit identifier prior to any device I/O or network egress; otherwise failing closed with a structured disposition selected from HOLD, QUARANTINE, DENY, or ESCALATE; wherein (i) absence, expiration, or revocation of the permit identifier results in DENY, and (ii) each evaluation binds a nonce and a monotonic counter to form a concurrency-prevention tuple; and (d) enforcing the requirement of (c) at an implementation hook selected from: (i) a kernel-mode driver path prior to doorbell or queue submission to an accelerator, (ii) a device-firmware microcode path prior to dispatch, or (iii) a hypervisor intercept path for VM-exit or network egress, thereby denying actuation absent a valid permit identifier. 
     
     
         2 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein, within the ELV, the system generates, for each execution request, a behavioral profile comprising at least a behavioral index, a temporal context, an instruction class, and an entropy-slope metric, and compares the profile to the ICC. 
     
     
         3 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein purpose alignment is verified using a Purpose Enforcement Kernel (PEK) against a Mission Identity Template (MIT). 
     
     
         4 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein two or more independent append-only verifiable logs are required and disagreement maps to HOLD until continuity is proven. 
     
     
         5 . The system of  claim 4 , wherein the required independent append-only verifiable logs each publish a signed head validated at runtime. 
     
     
         6 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein at least one witness co-signature on a current signed head is validated prior to inclusion or consistency checks. 
     
     
         7 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the freshness policy enforces a maximum-merge-delay (MMD) and an MMD exceedance maps to HOLD or DENY until continuity is proven. 
     
     
         8 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the permit is lease-based with a refresh-by window, and a missed refresh maps to HOLD and, if unremedied within a policy window, to DENY. 
     
     
         9 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the permit is audience-bound to at least one of an agent identifier, a tenant identifier, or a mission identifier, and includes an expiration. 
     
     
         10 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the system rejects a permit whose canonicalization or context label does not match a configured value. 
     
     
         11 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein a signature on the permit binds at least an ICC head identifier, a signed-head identifier, a license-tier identifier, an expiration, an audience binding, the nonce, and the monotonic counter. 
     
     
         12 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the ELV is read-only post-deployment and attempts to mutate sealed logic are denied and mirrored to the IAL. 
     
     
         13 . The system of  claim 1 , further comprising an Override Signature Denial Engine (OSDE) that rejects replay or mimicry using a signature-entropy correlation. 
     
     
         14 . The system of  claim 1 , further comprising a Global Override Cascade Trigger (GOCT) that halts execution across nodes and appends a lockdown tag in the IAL. 
     
     
         15 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the GLG requires validation of an ELV attestation quote prior to permit issuance, the quote comprising a measurement/image hash, a version/PCR register set, and a signature/certificate chain, and permit issuance is denied upon quote-validation failure. 
     
     
         16 . The system of  claim 1 , further comprising a Recursive Moral Drift Monitor (RMDM) that maintains rolling, windowed drift counters to compute a drift index, compares the drift index to a policy threshold, and, responsive to threshold breach, suspends privileges by preventing permit issuance, revoking an active permit, or both, thereby causing subsequent agent actions to fail closed prior to device I/O or network egress at the driver/firmware/hypervisor intercept. 
     
     
         17 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein driver-path denial occurs prior to doorbell or queue submission to an accelerator. 
     
     
         18 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein permit verification occurs in device-firmware microcode prior to dispatch. 
     
     
         19 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein permit verification occurs in a hypervisor intercept path, and the hypervisor intercept path denies VM-exit or network egress absent a valid permit identifier. 
     
     
         20 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein HOLD auto-expires absent proof of continuity. 
     
     
         21 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein a record in the Immutable Arbitration Ledger (IAL) further includes evidence-only references to one or more external artifacts, wherein the system exports an evidence-only bundle comprising at least the permit identifier and a signed-head identifier, and wherein gate predicate evaluation is independent of the presence or absence of the external artifacts. 
     
     
         22 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein an analytics module is configured to generate, for a reporting period, aggregated, privacy-preserving statistics derived from IAL records, and wherein the statistics are identified by at least a reporting-period identifier. 
     
     
         23 . A computer-implemented method of fail-closed gating for an AI (artificial intelligence) agent, comprising: anchoring an ICC commitment to an append-only verifiable log that publishes signed heads; at runtime in an ELV, verifying freshness and inclusion relative to a current signed head under a freshness policy and, responsive to a head advance, verifying an append-only-evolution (consistency) proof, verifying license tier and an m-of-n quorum at a licensing gate (GLG); minting and recording a short-lived, audience-bound permit in an Immutable Arbitration Ledger (IAL); requiring the permit identifier before device I/O or network egress at a driver, firmware, or hypervisor intercept; responsive to absence, expiration, or revocation of the permit, setting a structured disposition to DENY; binding, for each decision, a nonce and a monotonic counter to form a concurrency-prevention tuple that is required to be unique per evaluation and is rejected upon reuse; and auto-expiring a HOLD disposition absent proof of continuity, and
 enforcing an implementation hook selected from: (i) a kernel-mode driver path prior to doorbell or queue submission to an accelerator, (ii) a device-firmware microcode path prior to dispatch, or (iii) a hypervisor intercept path for VM-exit or network egress, thereby denying actuation absent a valid permit identifier.   
     
     
         24 . The method of  claim 23 , further comprising validating at least one witness co-signature on the current signed head prior to inclusion or consistency checks. 
     
     
         25 . The method of  claim 23 , wherein two independent append-only verifiable logs are required and a head conflict between the logs maps to HOLD with a conflict record in the IAL. 
     
     
         26 . A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed, cause one or more processors to perform the method of  claim 23 .